In the past, literary and dramatic, musical, motion picture and photographic works were fixed in tangible forms commonly known as books. Musical works were recorded on records, tapes or compact disks, and motion pictures were recorded on film, tape or disk. Photographs were printed on paper, which may have been bound into books. The literary works, dramatic works, musical works, motion pictures, and photographs were tangible items that could be seen with the naked human eye and stored in book shelves. When the possessor of any one of the above items wanted to use one of the items, the possessor would go to the book shelf and retrieve the item.
In today's society, with the proliferation of personal computers and the ability to easily connect to the internet, people have the ability to download literary works, dramatic works, musical works, motion pictures, and photographs from an internet site to their computer. In some instances, the consumer owns one copy of the downloaded material and in other instances, the consumer may only have certain specified rights to use the downloaded material, i.e., for their own use, to use the downloaded material a specified number of times, etc.
A consumer usually had the right to make archival copies of the downloaded material. However, a consumer usually was unable or unwilling to make archival copies, since the copies usually required a large amount of backup memory space and/or were a hassle to make. If archival copies of the downloaded material were not made and the consumer's computer files were corrupted or the consumer's computer crashed, the consumer may not have been able to retrieve the downloaded material, because the provider web site of the downloaded material was no longer available, or the content comprising the downloaded material was no longer available.
Digital Rights Management (DRM) systems have been developed to control a user's accesses to the items stored in the system. Current DRM systems do not archive downloaded material purchased by the consumer.